iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Is TV L-eye-v or L-i-v? Does Brian Cox the actor really look like Brian Cox the physicist? Did nobody even check the dated event associated with the photo? There are other instances of faces changing shape.

000

Since then I have seen a YouTube video that purports to be about "Genius" British actors and comedians. Several times the narrator screams "I am AI-generated!" in the repeated structure and pronunciation errors. "Read" is always pronounced as "reed" when the term "well read" is used. It's not all.

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The rules imposed by my local binmen make Brexit seem simple.

040

It's a formalised demonstration of manliness practised by men with strange balls.

I suppose I should add that I know American English is different. And varies across both the USA and Canada. There are a few marker buoys in that world-spanning ocean of words.

100

I have sometimes been hit by AI-generated subtitles on "live" video. They have not even made consistent mistakes which are built into the writing of English. I have heard real humans stumble over new-to-them words. I might know the word from reading, but do I get the sounds right?

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I don't think Vampires are "Sexy". The label "Seductive" is a better fit. One Vampire character I have seen in visual media matches a pattern of physicality, costume and body-shape, I have a "positive" reaction to. I have seen that look on characters in fiction that I would run away from.

I would be a little surprised if Halloween were totally absent, but so much we see here-and-now is commercial fakery. As I said to a friend, yesterday, if you believe a witch is a wizened hag, you don't know any witches.

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There are many videos about how to draw trees. With pen and ink the methods involve an illusion. Grey inks do exist, but varying amounts of black ink and white paper get the effect. Some artists are about as subtle as the illusion of an audience on a TV show laughter track.

It is a place on the road to civilization, close to where Vladimir and Estragon are still futilely arguing. Floccinaucinihilipilification is likely to be involved.

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Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 30/09/2026

This Bear is not in a good mood. Various reasons, local to me and news stories from around the world. Common thread; how do you know the rules _you_ follow work? How are _you_ tested for compliance with the rules? I'd rather look at that picture of Kate Beckinsale playing a Vampire...

000

Good cookery isn't Rocket Science. It's far more complicated than that.

000

Old from the BBC A self-important financial advisor takes charge of "volunteers" organised to stop a cross-Channel invasion. "Dad's Barmy."

001

Old from the BBC... A politician is given high office, is puzzled by advice from Civil Servants. "The Return of The Woodentops.

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Meanwhile, Barlow and Watt are brought out of retirement to find a herd of stolen elephants. Daftly Daftly, Tusk Farce. (With Colin Sell under the piano...)

030

I am in a grumpy mood. The Ranulph Fiennes story isn't helping — who can anyone trust — and I don't even have distant family who might ask questions. Social care, however much the politicians may shout this week, is feeling as though the slave-traders moved in with pockets full of dodgy cash.

000

I am not sure it is a good fit when I see it — another algorithm problem? — but "The Wreck of The Medusa" was looming on my mental horizon.

000

Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 28/09/2026

Is it deliberate or not? I have seen videos about "making" a tool which turn out to be about routine use of the tool. It's a "with the tool" video. It may not be the A.I. Slop from an LLM but isn't every search on the internet drowning in a sea of algorithms?

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Some "Roman" features on British maps are not. Not every straight road in England is Roman. I know of one straight road which didn't exist before 1830. But it got the "Roman Road" label. (The road was built under the local Enclosure Act, across the Common Land of the Parish.)

000

I've been making fast sketches, comic-style, with a brush-pen. Mostly humans. Humans vary, but you do need to have an idea of proportion. How big is their head? Where do eyes and ears go. Vitruvian Man isn't quite real. It's close, but it shows every section being of equal height.

000

I am overhearing a TV advert for a supplier of mobility aid, ranging from wheelchairs to walking sticks. The company keeps closing branches. The nearest to me is about twice as far away as it was a year ago. The adverts are about the most expensive options, such as carbon fibre for the frame.

000

These guinea-pigs will be surrounded by clumsy strangers, with unfamiliar scents. And I have no doubt that the dog half on my lap in the living room knew the Doctor Who theme. The Daleks would have had no chance.

Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 26/09/2026

One of the ideas somebody has had to please my elderly neighbours is to organise guinea-pig petting sessions. This feels like going back to a long-gone childhood for urban children. My life included quite rural dogs and cats, who knew me. It's a very different feeling. We had conversations.

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But do Disney's lawyers know?

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Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 26/09/2026

Can anyone call anything "Pluto" without a copyright clearance from Disney?

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Reposted by Wolf Baginski

Chaucer Doth Tweet @levostregc.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

A.I. and corporate lingo are dragging language ynto drugged realmes of vague, airy, plastic nothingnesse: glitz and hyperbole wythout meaning. Language must have fur and clawes, make the floorboardes creake and leave wet dirtye footprintes. Wordes are rayne and fyre and stone. Wielde them. Save us.

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A postal envelope is usually sized slightly larger than a folded sheet of paper. Paper for hand-written letters isn't an A-series size. Neither are postcards, the IBM punch cards, or the filing cards used in a library index.

000

A4 is a standard paper size in most of the world but, because the USA still uses inches, you need to be careful about buying from eBay or Amazon. I still see flat-sheet magnifiers, A5 size with a handle, sold as A4.

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I have seen elsewhere a claim that the "Mr. Emanuel" is his younger brother. That usage example feels odd.

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List of TechBros favourite films "A Loon Likes Malice." "Malice In Blunderland." "Malice Through The Looking Glass."

Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 24/09/2026

Here we hit the big problem. The outfits that publish videos and pay for them and charge people to see them don't fucking care what any State tells them to do. They're all Libertarian TechBros Vacuum-brained Shitheads

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Using "(concentrate)" is also dodgy science, whatever other bias the source might have.

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Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 24/09/2026

I keep being asked for my Real Name. Those people really don't know...

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Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 23/09/2026

I am now getting several regular emails by the new route. I am feeling slightly better about the changes.

Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 23/09/2026

The "sources say" in the original report should be a warning to us all.

Wolf Baginski @zhochaka.org.uk · 23/09/2026

I wonder if the core of the intent is "Original Pronunciation". The RP convention strains Shakespeare's rhymes and rhythms. But what label sells that intent to corporate Hollywood?

Trouble is, I'm just another white guy. Are the differences I see enough? I reckon some people who reply will end up being blocked. I expect to see a surfeit of short planks in this thread. And if you choose not to read the thread, that's OK.

000

There's a Steeleye Span album, and it contains the song "Dark Morris". We think of morris dancing as part of summer. In winter, black-clad morris dancers perform to bring back the light. And they wear blackface. Literally black, not dark brown, and no white splashes to mark mouth and eyes.

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"blackface" in performance is controversial. You shouldn't need to fake coloured characters that way. Can there be an excuse? Maybe. I am going to slightly nervously point at the "Wintersmith", where Terry Pratchett deliberately mirrored Mid-Summer traditions in England. White turning to Black.

100

I am a bit grumpy about the UI design I have been struggling with today. Word-A gets used for 2 or 3 different clickable icons/objects, and only one is the correct answer to the problem.

000

I reckon both eBay and Amazon are selling/advertising fraudulent crap provided by third parties. I was checking USB flash drives — what we used to call memory sticks — and I just cannot believe the prices. How do they have anything left after the delivery cost?

000

My reasoning is partly from being on the receiving end of Lord Acton's Dictum on the corrupting tendency of power.

000

The timing is a bit off for me, but I find it easy to believe an eldritch horror could be better than some teachers. And it might add to the chaos and confusion as new adults carry on asking awkward questions.

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